Diffractive optical elements are used to manipulate light in a variety of applications. Diffractive optical elements, for example, are commonly found in optical analytical instruments for separating polychromatic radiation into one or more monochromatic components. Diffractive optical elements are also used to provide desired diffraction orders of monochromatic radiation. Diffracting a beam of monochromatic radiation into a plurality of diffraction orders is advantageous in a number of applications including optical computing and data transmission systems as well as parallel processing systems.